Paris

Paris (UK:/ˈpærɪs/PARR-iss; US:i/ˈpɛərɪs/PAIR-iss; French:[paʁi]) is the capital and most populous city of France. Situated on the Seine River, in the north of the country, it is in the centre of the Île-de-Franceregion, also known as the région parisienne, "Paris Region". The City of Paris has an area of 105km² (41mi²) and a population of 2,241,346 (2014 estimate) within its administrative borders essentially unchanged since 1860.

Since the 19th century, the built-up area of Paris has grown far beyond its administrative borders; together with its suburbs, the whole agglomeration has a population of 10,550,350 (Jan. 2012 census).Paris' metropolitan area spans most of the Paris region and has a population of 12,341,418 (Jan. 2012 census), or one-fifth of the population of France. The administrative region covers 12,012km² (4,638mi²), with approximately 12 million inhabitants as of 2014, and has its own regional council and president.

Paris was founded in the 3rd century BC by a Celtic people called the Parisii, who gave the city its name. By the 12th century, Paris was the largest city in the western world, a prosperous trading centre, and the home of the University of Paris, one of the first in Europe. In the 18th century, it was the centre stage for the French Revolution, and became an important centre of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, a position it still retains today.

Paris (mythology)

Paris (Ancient Greek: Πάρις), also known as Alexander (Ἀλέξανδρος, Aléxandros), the son of Priam and Hecuba, the king and queen of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War. Later in the war, he fatally wounds Achilles in the heel with an arrow, as foretold by Achilles’s mother, Thetis. The name Paris is probably Luwian and comparable to Pari-zitis attested as a Hittite scribe's name.

Paris’s childhood

Paris was a child of Priam and Hecuba (see the list of King Priam's children). Just before his birth, his mother dreamed that she gave birth to a flaming torch. This dream was interpreted by the seerAesacus as a foretelling of the downfall of Troy, and he declared that the child would be the ruin of his homeland. On the day of Paris's birth it was further announced by Aesacus that the child born of a royal Trojan that day would have to be killed to spare the kingdom, being the child that would bring about the prophecy. Though Paris was indeed born before nightfall, he was spared by Priam; Hecuba, too, was unable to kill the child, despite the urging of the priestess of Apollo, one Herophile. Instead, Paris's father prevailed upon his chief herdsman, Agelaus, to remove the child and kill him. The herdsman, unable to use a weapon against the infant, left him exposed on Mount Ida, hoping he would perish there (cf. Oedipus); he was, however, suckled by a she-bear. Returning after nine days, Agelaus was astonished to find the child still alive, and brought him home in a backpack (Greekpḗra, hence by folk etymology Paris’s name) to rear as his own. He returned to Priam bearing a dog's tongue as evidence of the deed's completion.

Following a tradition of American cities named "Paris", a 65-foot (20m) replica of the Eiffel Tower was constructed in 1993. In 1998, presumably as a response to the 1993 construction of a 60-foot (18m) tower in Paris, Tennessee, the city placed a giant red cowboy hat atop the tower. The current tower is at least the second Eiffel Tower replica built in Paris; the first was constructed of wood and later destroyed by a tornado.

History

Lamar County was first settled in different parts of an area to the west of Jonesborough and Clarksville. There was a settlement on the Red River at a place called Fulton, one near what is now called Emberson, one to the southeast of that near where today is the North Lamar school complex, a fourth southwest of that at the Chisum-Johnson community called Pinhook, and a group of pioneers east of that at Moore's Springs. In late 1839, George W. Wright moved from his farm northeast of Clarksville to a hill where he had purchased 1,000 acres of unoccupied land. It was on the old road from the Kiomatia River's mouth at the Red River to the Grand Prairie. Wright opened a general store on the road. By December 1840 a new county had been formed, named for Republic of Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar. By September 1841 Wright's store was called Paris and served as the local postal office. In August 1844, the county commissioners took Wright's offer of 50 acres and made Paris the county seat.